Photovoltaic

AFG Industries Inc., the Irvine-based glass maker, said Thursday it will be part of a three-company joint venture to build a new factory to manufacture photovoltaic modules, devices used to convert sunlight directly into electricity, for an Alabama utility. AFG will join Southern Electric Investment Inc. and Chronar Corp. to build the six-foot-high modules that will provide off-peak hour, reserve power for the investment company's parent, Alabama Power Co. Start-up of the $7.

British Petroleum's solar power unit is buying the remnants of Fairfield-based Advanced Photovoltaic Systems out of bankruptcy and will invest $20 million in a solar power manufacturing plant to reopen later this year with 100 workers. BP Solar International does not generate solar energy but manufactures and markets panels to businesses, individuals and utilities, BP President Dipesh Shah said. The plant will produce "thin film, glass-based" photovoltaic cells to be marketed nationwide.

As recently as last fall, the photovoltaic energy industry was in danger of being snuffed out by the hostile winds of electricity deregulation blowing into California's power market. Why the gloom? Photovoltaic, a form of solar power, is more than twice as expensive to produce as power generated with natural gas, the benchmark.

When J. W. (Bill) Yerkes resigned abruptly from Arco Solar Inc. in January to start his own company using a new solar technology, the fledgling photovoltaic industry buzzed like an aging transformer. Yerkes, 51, was already widely known as an individualist who had combined the presidency of the Chatsworth-based photovoltaic company, a subsidiary of oil giant Atlantic Richfield Co., with a life style faintly reminiscent of the 1960s counterculture.

It rains year round in Germany. Clouds cover the skies for about two-thirds of all daylight hours. Yet the country has managed to become the world's leading solar power generator. Even though millions of Germans flee their damp, dark homeland for holidays in the Mediterranean sun, 55% of the world's photovoltaic power is generated on solar panels set up between the Baltic Sea and the Black Forest. So far just 3% of Germany's electricity comes from the sun.

Employees of the South Coast Air Quality Management District will get more of a charge out of driving to work this summer-if they happen to drive an electric car. Using a promising new solar-cell technology developed by Southern California Edison Co. and Texas Instruments, Irvine-based Fluor Corp. is working with Edison to build a "solar carport" at the AQMD's headquarters in Diamond Bar. Like conventional solar cells, the new Texas Instruments cells convert sunlight directly into electricity.

The solar carport today joins a profusion of vehicles, furniture finishes and barbecue lighters being dreamed up as part of the grand campaign for cleaner air in Southern California. The device--which will use rooftop photovoltaic solar panels to recharge cars or to feed excess electricity into a utility's power lines--will be announced this morning by Southern California Edison and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Good morning, fellow sun-lovers. Here we are in Southern California, home of the New Year's Day Rose Parade, which customarily reminds the world at large that we loll around outdoors in winter without hats and coats. (Never mind the stormy weather of the last week.) But what the whole world doesn't know--and what many otherwise hip Californians aren't aware of--is that right here in Ventura County, El Sol is the basis of an important industry. And I'm not talking tourism.

"Electric sandpaper" is what one of its inventors calls it. And it may be an answer to the long-sought goal of producing solar power at a realistic cost to the consumer. The inexpensive, fabric-like photovoltaic material shown off recently by Southern California Edison Co. and Texas Instruments Inc. is a promising surprise from an unexpected line of research.

Over the years, the Palo Alto Research Center has developed numerous electricity-gobbling innovations. Now the storied lab that gave the world laser printing and graphical user interfaces is trying to harness the sun to power its inventions. The Xerox Corp.